무극(無極)과 천주(天主) – 후안 코보(Juan Cobo)의 성리학적 호교론

초록

This research investigates the structure and intellectual-historical significance of the Neo-Confucian apologetics developed by Dominican missionary Juan Cobo (1546/1547–1592) in his pioneering work, Wuji Tianzhu Zhengjiao Zhenchuan Shilu (無極天主正敎眞傳實錄), printed in the late 16th-century Philippines. Situating the text within the lineage of early Catholic literature in Chinese, this study analyzes how Cobo creatively adapted the translational legacy established by Michele Ruggieri’s Tianzhu Shilu (1584). The analysis demonstrates that, grounded in Thomistic realism, Cobo appropriated the core Neo-Confucian categories of Wuji (無極) and Taiji (太極) as ontological equivalents of the Creator. By utilizing them as strategic resources for demonstrating God's existence and Natural Theology, he articulated a philosophical universalism based on the principle of the "Singularity of Reason across the Civilized and the Barbarian" (Huayi yili, 華夷一理). Ultimately, this study elucidates the unique value of this singular instance of Neo-Confucian apologetics—which diverges from Matteo Ricci’s accommodationist model—while illuminating both the possibilities and the reductionist constraints of its bold attempt to ontologically synthesize Eastern and Western metaphysics.

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